Business: The Fed's Surprise

To the surprise of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve Board last week
tightened up on credit againand immediately stirred up a controversy.
In the third such move since last summer, the Fed permitted four
district banks (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas) to raise their
discount rates to member banks from 2½% to 3%, thus allowing others to
follow.

The move came as a surprise, because only one day earlier, Federal
Reserve Board Member M. S. Szymczak told a Washington audience that the
Fed might have followed a tougher money policy were it not for the
4,700,000 U.S. workers still unemployed. His remark...